New Companion

Hello everyone!!

Wow. I can´t express how wonderful I am feeling right now! I have so much to say, and have time to write today!

Yesterday we had the wonderful opportunity to see Elder Bednar and hear him speak. It was an incredible experience. He taught so many things that I can use on my mission, and he was so down to earth. When he bore his testimony at the end, about Christ and the church, I felt the spirit so incredibly strong and knew that what he was testifying was 100% true. That was an addition to my testimony, and now I can truly testify that this gospel is real and not even stop for a mille second to think otherwise. It was extremely wonderful!

Other than that I have been working really hard! I´m liking my new companion- She is Brazilian and has a little more than a year on the mission. It’s been okay so far; she is great but is very different from my last companion. Just getting used to her and increasing my patience! I pretty much act like the senior companion- I know the area, everyone talks to me, and it’s great! I’m talking more, and working like crazy. The days pass faster when you’re working hard.

We have a baptism this weekend of a very amazing girl. It has been wonderful to see the absolute happiness that the gospel brings. She is so happy! She’s full of joy and just beaming. I love moments like this, because it truly comes down to bringing people to the church to find happiness. I am so extremely grateful for my mission- it´s everything to me! I think every day, who would I have been without my mission?? I don’t want to know, but I do know that I am changing, becoming a better and stronger, more wise person. It is incredible! I encourage everyone to go on a mission- you will love it if you want to. That’s the trick- You get out of it what you put into it!
Well have a good week everyone. Pray for Lulu and her twin Zeze- I hope they get baptized this week. I love you all and have a wonderful week!

-Sister Gordon


Me, Thais, Lulu (she will be baptized this sunday)and my companion


Me and Sis Maughan!


Me and my new companion- Sis. Machado




Hanging outside of the bus, close to the beach.

A new companion! Good Bye Sis. Pozete, I'll miss you my friend!

Hello everyone!

 This will be a quick letter. So this week was great! I wasn’t transferred, but I received a new companion. She just got here and I don’t know her well, so I don’t really have much to say. I hope it will be good- Sister Pozete and I were good friends. So I hope the same happens here too!

 This week Thais was baptized. It was one of the biggest trials of my faith and a miracle. It’s a whole wonderful story, and I would love to write it all, but I don’t have time.  I will soon though! But thank you for your prayers.

My goodness, I have so many cool stories to tell and no time! Bummer!! But maybe I will next week. I hope this week goes well. We have an incredible opportunity this week- Elder Bednar (click for information on Elder Bednar) (an Apostle) will be visiting, and we will hear from him Monday. I am sooo excited!!!  So my prep day will be different again, I think. But sooo neat!!!!! 

I am doing well but not looking forward to the rest of this day. Sis. Pozete left earlier than normal, and no one knows she has left. So I will have to see a ton of sad faces today, but looking forward to this new change.

 I have to say that I can truly see the Lord blessing my life. But, most of the time the blessings and miracles come after a huge trial of my faith. Chapter 12 in Ether, the Book of Mormon, (click to read Ether) talks about this, and I love it. Read it- okay?? But I think the Lord loves to test every one of us, and then bless us with more than we expected. Whenever we need anything, he is there. Whenever you have a doubt or question- just pray! Heavenly father helps us with everything. I am so grateful to be here. I am melting, yes, but being blessed at the same time, I think it will be weird to return home and not be constantly sweating! Have a wonderful week! I love you all and am so grateful for your prayers! Until next week!

Love,
 Sister Gordon



Thais´s baptism! Such a wonderful experience.

I'm addicted to this candy!



Twin sisters I am teaching...they are so cute and cool.


She's so cute!


Thais, a new member now



An awesome investigator, Vagna is her name.


We rode to the bus station in a packed car- backpacks, suitcases, and 6 people! I had to hang out the window!


Transfers!

Sisters I spent the day with, so fun!

HAPPY 6 MONTHS TO ME!

Hello everyone!

 I just have to start out by saying, “ HAPPY SIX MONTHS TO ME!!!”  Wow, six months. My goodness! One third of my mission is done. WOW. A year is still a long time ahead, but it passes by soo fast! I still have a lot to do here, and a lot to learn, that is for sure. But I feel like its a little accomplishment! ha-ha I’m sure elders just laugh at this because they stay so much longer, but O well! I’m happy!

 So what happened this week that is worth talking about?? I don’t even know. After 4 months in the same area with the same companion, I am starting to get ready for a change. I don’t have any more cool pictures to show you guys, or anything too fun to say. Sad! But don’t worry; I will transfer at some time. Maybe next week? Next week is transfers and I’m way nervous. We are getting a bunch of new sisters on the mission, so I´m almost positive something will change this transfer! Aghhh, so nervous! But I trust the Lord, so whatever happens will be for the best.

Let’s see...  You all say my life is exciting, but I have nothing to say! O- So the church is encouraging the missionaries to find families and men to teach. My companion and I have been doing just that. The BIG PROBLEM- No one is married. NO ONE IS MARRIED. A few weeks ago we had 7 families we were teaching, and none of them married. They have to be married to be baptized! And the reason why is because they have to pay here. When people can barely buy food for their family, the last thing they want to do is pay $152 to be married. That is a lot of money for them!! So, its very difficult to baptize these families. And on top of that, people are very lazy and fall through with commitments really fast. But, the good news is that we have one couple who is just wonderful. The man is a member, and the girl isn’t, but they are very committed and she has a strong desire to be baptized. I have a feeling it will take forever to marry them and then baptize her. We´ve already had been teaching them for more than a month! But pray for us to find married families to teach!

 This week we taught a woman named Vagna. She started telling us about how she frequented another church for 8 years, and started to not feel good about their teachings. She fell away, and now a while later felt like she needed to find a church again. So as we answered her questions about tithing, or fasting, she completely agreed with everything we taught. We taught her the first lesson and felt the spirit strongly. After, she had a smile on her face, and said that she really enjoyed our message, and loved that she agreed with everything. She started to cry and said that she felt so good about what we were teaching, and felt so happy. We told her that it was the Spirit she was feeling, and that the things we were teaching were true. It was such a wonderful thing to find someone ready to hear about the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and to feel the Spirit testifying that what we were teaching was true. I love moments like this! This is why I am here, to bring this happiness to others.

 Like I have been saying every week, it’s getting hot. I found the way to describe it. You know that feeling of heat when you have a fever? Your whole body is hot and uncomfortable, and its hard to cool down. And when you sleep, you wake up sweating a lot. This is my life here. For a majority of the day/week I feel like this. Uncomfortably, feverishly, sweaty hot. I can’t imagine what will happen these next few months as it gets hotter! It’s incredible to think that it’s getting cool where ya´ll are- what is cool?

   Well, I love you all and am so grateful for your prayers. Pray that all will go well with transfers this week! I miss you all and am so happy to be serving here. Have a wonderful week!!  Love, Sister Gordon

It's Getting Hotter!

So I promised a more interesting email this week. I hope you will like this. I can feel myself starting to turn into that churchy missionary who only has a testimony to bear and nothing interesting to say... o No!!
But first I must be this missionary and say that I LOVED General Conference. Unfortunately/fortunately I watched 3/4 of it in Portuguese. I still learned a lot and enjoyed it, but the one session in English was much easier to feel the Spirit. It is so much different watching conference when you are a missionary! You have your investigators there, or you are thinking about them during the talks. You realize the importance of having modern day prophets and apostles. You feel the spirit and totally pay attention. And it goes by so fast! I always want to be a missionary during conference, it is so uplifting. I hope you all learned a lot and didn’t sleep too much!

I will tell you about an investigator we have. I think I have already talked about her, her name is Thais and she is 18. It’s been months now that we have been working with her, and after all this time we still are on the first lesson, teaching her about the importance of the restoration of the gospel and how important the priesthood is. Of course, we have talked about a billion other things, but it’s been a trial of faith. She was raised Jehovah’s Witness, and has some pretty interesting points of view. But she is really open to learning about the gospel. It finally came down to her realizing that she was looking for the gospel of Thais, and not the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ means sacrifice, work, faith, and most of all happiness. She says she hasn’t received a testimony, but we all know she has. Last night we were finally able to mark her baptism, with her hesitance, and are so excited to prepare her for the next two weeks. She is so awesome! She even was talking about how she would like to be a missionary like us someday. It’s such a wonderful feeling. The story about her is so much more detailed, and so funny, but I don’t have the time to tell everything. Maybe someday!

It’s been getting HOT here. Everyday about 10am we are totally sweating with our fan on in the house. I don’t know how people like to live like this! You are always dripping sweat, it’s so wonderful. Today I calculated that I´ve taken about 160 cold showers here. Most of those were painful, but lately it´s so wonderful. We shower about 3 times a day here! My goodness! I seriously need you to pray that I won’t die here in the heat, because I’m starting to believe it. Every time people say òh this isn’t hot. Just you wait- it´ll get hotter!` I want to cry!! I keep thinking of a scripture in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 3:7- “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” The Lord called me here and he´s prepared a way for me to survive here. I don’t know how, but I will!

Well life is starting to feel normal here. It´s weird how you start to forget life at home, but at the same time you miss your life at home. I heard some Guns and Roses playing on the street today, and I had the strongest desire to play some Rock Band. But, now isn’t the time! I love being a missionary, and I am realizing how important this work is. There are people here that need me, and I am excited for the year and a little I have left here.

Thanks for your prayers! As it’s getting hotter, we are seeing more and more cockroaches running around. Soooo I hope I don’t have any interesting stories about them for you next week!

Love you all and thanks for your support. Eu estou orando por vocês! (I am praying for you all!) Tchau!
Love, Siiiister Melting Gordon

A note for future missionaries going to Brazil… They are having a HUGE problem with American missionaries getting their visa. I would be worried about it. This next transfer we only have one American coming to the mission. They changed the age limit for young men missionaries here to 18yrs old because they need missionaries so bad.

NOTE from Jenn: I sent a package on July 25th and she just now received it. So if you want to send anything for her birthday, December 4th or Christmas,do it now.Ha!

Laundry Day at our apartment

When the toilet troubles begin, we figure it out ourself! Don't you love how we don't have a seat?!

General Conference at our church building

Hello From Natal.........

Oi ya´ll!
This week was good. We had a zone conference and heard some wonderful advice from our mission president and Elder Godoy of the Seventy. It´s always refreshing to learn and get excited to work again.
My goodness. I feel like I don’t have much to say again. I PROMISE this week I will write things down to say. I always have stories, but I forget when the moment comes. One thing that was amazing was Francisco´s baptism. He is 70 and was a drunk- I think i already talked about him. But over these past few weeks, he has stopped with every addiction he had and has been reading the Book of Mormon every day to help him. I can’t tell you how much of a change we have seen. My companion and I have seen him change completely- he looks more youthful, is talking clearer, has more energy, more confidence, happier, and more light. It is just wonderful to see a miracle like this happen. From a drunk falling down in the middle of the street to a baptism. And when people see us walking with him down the street to church, they always say `Goin to church Francisco? That’s great!` I can’t help but think of Christ helping the people that needed it most, and that’s what our job here is as representatives of him. So that was great!
On the other hand, we are still having problems with people not keeping their promises, and people not reading or praying. It’s so sad! We can’t help people any more if they don’t do their part, and I´m sure the lord feels the same way. We also have been finding many families to teach, and out of the 5 families we are teaching, none of them are married. Of course. It takes forever to marry people here and money too. So we might not have some baptisms for a while. Pray that this will work out!
But I love you all and am so happy for everyone at home. I keep hearing good news, and It makes me so happy. I love ya´ll and keep you in my prayers! I will try to think of more things to say next week.

I can testify that the mission changes people. I hope I come back a changed person, for the better. I cannot even begin to describe the number of things I am learning here on the mission. Things you could never learn at home, and I’m starting to think `How would I have turned out without my mission??` Even though I have times where I want to be home, or eat normal food, or see you guys, or even just sit on a comfortable couch for a few minutes, I still am grateful that I am able to be serving here and that the Lord seriously trusts `ME` to take care of these people. It´s a big responsibility, but I´m trying to be a good missionary.
Love,
Steph



Zone Conference....How's my momma look? Your momma got troubs! (That's for Aunt Crystal)


The bus to Zone Conference...4 sisters and a ton of Elders





Francisco's Baptism

New Blog for Sister Gordon

For some reason, I cannot sign on Stephanie's previous blog, so it has been changed to this new one....

Last week's letter:

Oi tudo mundo! (literally- Hello all the world- or just Hello everyone!)
 
  This week was good, and short. Not too much happened! We had a baptism.. well sort of. Technically it was our baptism, but here´s the story. A young woman in the ward wants to go to the temple, but they couldnt find her record! So we had to baptize her again in order for it all to work out. Hahaha So, we baptized! (but i dont count it..)

  Francisco, the drunk, is doing well. He hasn't drank, and has stopped drinking coffee and smoking. I am so happy! If he stays strong this week, we will baptize him on Saturday, which will be a miracle on the mission.

We have a conference this week with a Seventy, Elder Godoy. I am excited! But other than that, I don't have too much to write. I have a really funny story, but no time to tell it! Sorry this week is soo short.
 Have a great week everyone!

-Sister Gordon





A HeSheSpecie on the bus... he was advertising for helping children in hospitals. I had to take a picture.. and my face is scary!


Playing soccer with the Elders. Ooops! I lost my flip flop!



Prep day with our zone and normal clothes! Jeans!! (first time in 5 months! It felt weird!)